40 July 25 • 2019
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T
his week’
s Torah portion con-
tains an especially challenging
episode, one which produces
a call to arms against the
onset of an indecent and cor-
rupt era.
The episode occurs when
the Israelite soldiers consort
with Midianite women and
a plague breaks out. At the
climax, the Midianite prin-
cess, Cozbi, and the Israelite
soldier, Zimri, publicly go to
copulate inside the taberna-
cle. Moses, our leader, hesi-
tates, while Aaron’
s grandson
Pinchas, filled with ven-
geance, takes up his spear. He
impales the couple in a single
thrust, lifting the plague.
Pinchas’
act is gruesome,
but one that also preserves sanctity.
We are told in the opening verses of
our portion that Pinchas is given a
brit shalom, a “covenant of peace;”
yet, there is something peculiar
about this peace. The third Hebrew
letter of the word shalom, the vav,
is usually just a vertical line with a
small dash on top; but here occurs
a unique orthographic feature: The
vertical line is broken into two parts,
extending up and down with a gap
in the middle (Numbers 25:12).
Why is this vav broken? Some
teach this represents the fragility of
a peace won through violence the
PTSD trauma that haunts some sol-
diers following a bloody encounter.
Yet others teach this vav serves a
more mystical purpose, that we can
unlock through digging into the ori-
gin of the vav itself.
Although their shapes have mor-
phed over millennia, Hebrew letters
were originally drawn and named to
resemble objects, and the letter vav
which means “hook” originally had
a more hook-like shape. Today, a vav
is drawn as a vertical line, a line that
hooks the top and the bottom of the
line together, a hook that joins heav-
en above to Earth below.
Clearly, the Torah is telling
us something about the bro-
kenness of that moment when
Pinchas intervened. It teaches
that sins perpetrated by those
who do not share our values
have a lasting effect that lin-
gers even when the perpetra-
tor has been vanquished.
Today, in the United States,
our Jewish values are under
assault. Regardless of your
view on immigration, the con-
ditions asylum seekers on our
southern border are subjected
to are reprehensible. Men are
held in standing-room-only
cells for more than a month without
access to showers. Children are torn
from their parents. And, although
we can correct these injustices, fur-
ther effort will be needed to repair
the damage to our sense of decency.
It is our obligation as Jews and
Americans to object to this self-in-
flicted humanitarian crisis being
perpetrated, to take up Pinchas’
met-
aphorical spear without hesitation
and say loudly and clearly, “These
injustices do not represent us; nei-
ther are they values that our country
or our people were built on. This is
not normal.”
As Jews, we know what it means
to be a persecuted minority. We
know our obligation to love the
stranger as ourselves for we were
strangers in the land of Egypt. By
our resolve, may we see that this
plague is halted and the rupture
between heaven and Earth is ulti-
mately restored. ■
Rabbi Brent Gutmann is rabbi at Temple Kol
Ami in West Bloomfield.
A Broken Peace
Rabbi
Brent Gutmann
Parshat
Pinchas:
Numbers
25:16-30:1;
Jeremiah
1:1-2:3.
spirit
torah portion
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